OFFICIAL CEREMONIES 


AT THE UNVEILING OF 
THE MEMORIAL STATUE OF 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

PRESENTED TO 
THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

BY 

THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION 


TUESDAY, OCTOBER TWENTY-FOUR 
1911 





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OFFICIAL CEREMONIES 
AT THE UNVEILING OF THE MEMORIAL STATUE 
OF 


WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 


PRESENTED TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK, ON 
TUESDAY, THE 24th OF OCTOBER, 1911, BY 

THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION 
T the time of his death in 1879, William Cullen 



A Bryant had been for the preceding eleven 
years President of the Century Association. 

At a meeting of the Association on the 2d of 
June, 1883, it adopted the following resolution: 

Resolved, That a Committee of three be appointed to receive 
subscriptions, and, when sufficient funds are secured, to take 
all other necessary measures for the erection of a monumental 
statue of the late William C. Bryant on a site to be selected 
by the Committee. 

John Bigelow was designated as Chairman of 
such Committee, and John H. Gourlie and Thomas 
Hicks were designated as his associates. In the 
month of December following the number of the 
Committee was increased to seven by the addition of 
the names of A. Foster Higgins, A. R. McDon- 
ough, Percy It. Pyne, and Henry F. Spaulding. 


Cl 3 


Subsequently the Committee was enlarged to 
twelve members, and James J. Higginson, Henry 
G. Marquand, F. Hopkinson Smith, William E. 
Dodge, Louis C. Tiffany, William W. Appleton, 
George L. Rives, Moses Taylor Pyne, Samuel P. 
Avery, and Charles H. Ludington were from time 
to time elected members to take the places thus cre- 
ated, or to fill vacancies caused by death or resig- 
nation. 

In the year 1884, and in contemplation of the 
removal of the reservoir from Fifth Avenue, the 
Chairman of the Committee applied to Salem H. 
Wales, who, with John D. Crimmins and William 
Olliffe, composed the Commissioners of Public 
Parks, to give the name of Bryant Park to what 
had been known as Reservoir Square. The records 
of the Park Commissioners inform us that on May 
21, 1884, at a meeting of the aforesaid Commis- 
sioners, the following resolution was offered by 
Commissioner Wales and adopted: 

Resolved, That, under the provisions of Section 1, Chapter 
282 of the Laws of 1884, the Public Park situated between 
40th and 42d Streets, Fifth and Sixth Avenues, shall hereafter 
be known and described as Bryant Park. 


This resolution was enforced by the following 
remarks from Commissioner Wales: 

In response to the request urged by the friends of the late 
William Cullen Bryant, the Legislature has authorized the 
Department of Parks to change the name of Reservoir Square 
to Bryant Park ; and in moving this resolution I deem it fitting 

can 


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to say that the act is a graceful recognition of one who was 
alike eminent for his public and private virtues. 

The city has not anything more precious than the memory 
of those who, by their labors and example, have exalted the 
standard of citizenship. In these respects Mr. Bryant was a 
conspicuous illustration, and as the editor of a leading daily 
he contributed largely toward securing for the city the Central 
Park, in which he always took the warmest interest. It gives 
me pleasure to move this resolution, and I have no doubt it 
will receive the unanimous approval of this board. 

Its approval was unanimous. 

The Act under which the Park Commissioners 
were empowered to offer this tribute to the memory 
of Mr. Bryant was introduced into the State Sen- 
ate by a centurion, the late James Hampden Robb, 
whose demise we have been called upon so recently 
to deplore. The same bill was introduced in the 
Assembly by the Hon. James Oliver. It passed 
both Houses without a dissenting voice. 

The consolidation of the New York Public Li- 
brary in 1896, and the construction of a palace for 
its properties by the city, furnished our municipal 
authorities another occasion to honor the memory 
of Mr. Bryant. The Century’s Committee applied 
to the Park Commission for a site for the Century’s 
monument to Mr. Bryant on the esplanade imme- 
diately adjoining the west front of the New York 
Public Library, and in the very park that bore the 
poet’s name. On the application of Hon. Henry 
Smith, then President of the Park Commission, this 
site, with the preliminary plans, was approved by 
the Art Commission, by the adoption of the follow- 
ing resolution, on the 16th of February, 1909: 

C«3 


Resolved, That the Art Commission hereby approves the de- 
signs and location of a statue of William Cullen Bryant to be 
placed in the rear of the New York Public Library, represented by 
Exhibits 390A, 390B, and 390C, of record in this matter, and 
that the action of the Commission be certified with return of 
duplicates of exhibits herein noted to Hon. Henry Smith, 
Commissioner of Parks for the Boroughs of Manhattan and 
Richmond. 


Again, February 14, 1911, the Art Commission 
adopted the following resolution: 

Resolved, That the Art Commission hereby approves the 
designs and location of a statue of William Cullen Bryant, to 
be placed in the rear of the New York Public Library, repre- 
sented by Exhibits 390D, 390E, and 390F, of record in this 
matter. 


The designs for a statue of heroic size, thus ap- 
proved by the Art Commission, were the work of 
Mr. Herbert Adams, an honored member of the 
Century Association, who had been selected by the 
Committee as the artist to produce the Century’s 
Memorial Monument of its former President. The 
pedestal was designed by another member, Mr. 
Thomas Hastings, whose firm were the architects 
of the Public Library building. 


THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE 


The statue being successfully completed, Tuesday, 
the 24th of October, 1911, was selected as the day 
for the unveiling, and at the invitation of the Com- 
mittee, the Rev. Henry van Dyke, D.D., agreed to 
deliver an address upon the occasion. 

The arrangements on the ground were very ad- 
mirably made by the Hon. Charles B. Stover, the 
President of the Department of Parks, in coopera- 
tion with the officers of the Century Association. 
Notices were sent to all the members of the Asso- 
ciation and to relatives and friends of Mr. Bryant; 
and as the day proved fine and clear, a large audi- 
ence assembled at half-past two in the afternoon, 
the time fixed for the ceremonies. 

Mr. Rives, a member of the Committee, opened 
the proceedings as follows: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Mr. Bigelow, to our very great regret, is pre- 
vented from being present this afternoon, but he 
has sent me a letter which I will read : 


21 Gramercy Park, 
October 23, 1911. 

My dear Mr. Rives: 

It is with inexpressible regret I realize that I shall not be 
able to participate in the unveiling of the Bryant Memorial 
Statue in Bryant Park to-morrow. 

My physician, who has just left me, tells me I am still too 
feeble for such a duty. 

I was greatly relieved by your note, which assured me that 
you will be present, so that I shall not be missed. 

Don’t forget that it is the Century that gives our city this 
counterfeit presentment of our Father of American Poetry in 
bronze, nor that he was President of the Century Associa- 
tion at the time of his death, nor that the maker of the counter- 
feit presentment, Mr. Adams, as well as the orator of the 
day, are members of the Century Association. 

I congratulate you upon the prospect of a fair day for the 
occasion and for being the providential person who is privi- 
leged to draw the curtain that veils the figure of our most 
illustrious American poet. 

Yours sincerely, 

(Signed) John Bigelow. 

My most immediate duty will be performed when 
I present to you the orator of the day, an eminent 
theologian, a delightful poet, and, above all, a mem- 
ber of the Century Association— the Rev. Henry 
van Dyke. 






































































































































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ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. HENRY 
VAN DYKE 


It is fitting that this stately Library, designed by 
American architects, should be adorned by the noble 
work of an American sculptor, commemorating the 
fame and influence of the first American poet. 
William Cullen Bryant deserves honor of the Re- 
public, not only because he gave the poetic spirit an 
authentic voice in this Western world, but also be- 
cause he embodied in his character that self-control 
and self-reliance, and that grave, indomitable, and 
religious love of liberty which created, and have still 
preserved, these United States. 

When we think of the New England hamlet of 
Cummington, where he was born in 1794, and recall 
the calm rocks and rills, the wild-flowery woods 
and templed hills of Massachusetts, whose tranquil 
charm was mirrored in his verse, it seems strange to 
some of us who see his image in the tumultuous 
city. But not to those old friends and associates 
whose wise affection planned this memorial. For 
New York was Bryant’s chosen home, where by 
more than half a century of splendid service he 
earned the title of “first citizen.” 

What better place than here, in this gateway city 

cn 


of a golden world, amid the Babel-clamor of a sky- 
scaling metropolis, for such a statue to bear silent 
witness that man’s soul is greater than all the works 
of his hands? What better place than here, beside 
this House of Books, beautified by the sister arts, to 
set the enduring figure of one who practised, 
through the storm and stress of life, the loftiest, the 
most humane, the most consoling and inspiring of 
all the arts,— the art of poetry, in which the 
thought of man climbs into flower, and the emotion 
of man rises into song? 

Auspicious, indeed, would the unveiling of this 
statue be, if it were not only a memorial but also 
a prophecy— the first of a long line of works to 
embellish this Library, not with forms from the 
animal world, but with images and emblems of 
human aspiration and intellectual triumph, 

And silent faces of the Great and Wise. 


When Bryant appeared, poetry was read in 
America, but it was not written. Prose had already 
begun. The straight and sinewy style of Jonathan 
Edwards’ moral and philosophical essays; the easy 
and lucid English of Franklin’s “Autobiography” ; 
the ripe and polished diction in which the authors 
of “The Federalist” clad their compelling argu- 
ments : these American productions, not to speak of 
others, had a distinct literary value. Washington 
Irving had charmed his readers with the good- 
humored grace of his “Knickerbocker’s History.” 
Daniel Webster’s eloquence rolled and reverberated 

m 


in his oration on the Pilgrim Fathers. But in verse 
there was little to enjoy and nothing to remember, 
except perhaps a few patriotic and sentimental 
songs, and two or three delicate lyrics of Philip 
Freneau, that New Jersey poet who lost himself in 
politics. 

The belated birth of poetry in America was not 
strange or unnatural. Apart from the inevitable 
pressure of practical cares in a new country, there 
was another cause, which critics have overlooked. 
In a nation which springs from barbarism, poetry 
of a simple and spontaneous kind— ballads, leg- 
ends, rhymed romances— will come before prose. 
But with a people who start on a basis of inherited 
culture and civilization, prose is likely to come first, 
because they have already passed the stage at which 
primitive folk-poems are possible, and not yet 
reached the stage in which the art of poetry moves 
freely and largely within its own conscious laws. 

This was perhaps the reason why the lovers of 
poetry in America, at the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, had no choice but to commend the 
Connecticut school of verse-makers for patriotic 
reasons, and to go on reading the English poets for 
pleasure. 

In 1817 “The North American Review” printed 
Thanatopsis, a piece of blank verse which Bryant 
had written in his seventeenth year. It was an 
amazing production for a boy — large and lofty in 
feeling, strong in the simplicity of noble diction, 
sonorous in its moving music— a great view of 
Death, closing with a brave call to life. 

[9] 


So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death. 

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering faith, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 


The poem is moral, it is true, like Wordsworth’s 
Tintern Abbey , like Burns’ Mountain Daisy , like 
Holmes’ Chambered Nautilus. It means some- 
thing, yet I dare maintain that it is none the less 
poetic because it speaks awe and comfort to the 
heart of man. It has no subtlety of thought nor 
strangeness of phrase, but it has deep and sincere 
emotions, and a plain grandeur of imagery like 

the continuous woods 

Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound 
Save his own dashings. 


This poem was republished with seven others in 
1821 ; and with the appearance of this little volume 
it became clear to the discerning that America had 
a true poet. The exquisite local color of such 
nature-pieces as Green River and the Yellow Vio- 
let; the thoughtful and confident tone of patriotism 
which closes the too formal poem on The Ages ; and 
the deep, clear, sweet music of the lines To a Water- 
fowl , his most perfect lyric: these are the three ele- 
ments of Bryant’s excellence— native color, a sane 
enthusiasm for his country, and a lofty, meditative 

Cio] 


music. These were with him at the beginning, and 
he kept them with a rare evenness to the end. 

There was, indeed, something serene and stead- 
fast in his poetic career, which saved him from vain 
agitations and changes, as if to fulfil his own greet- 
ings to the wild fowl darkly floating along the crim- 
son sky : 

There is a power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, 

The desert and illimitable air, — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 


Yet the outward life of the poet was neither 
lonely nor leisurely. In 1825 he left his slender law 
practice at Great Barrington and came to New 
York to seek fortune with his pen. A little later 
he entered the editorial office of “The Evening 
Post,” which he made a great journal, devoted, in 
stormy times, to liberty, union, and civic righteous- 
ness. The story of his career as a journalist, as a 
public orator, as a citizen, has been told in full by 
his son-in-law, Parke Godwin, and in brief, with 
admirable consciousness and literary judgment, by 
his longtime associate and friend,— to whose faith- 
ful labors this monument is largely due, and whose 
absence is the one cloud on the brightness of this 
day,— John Bigelow. It is a fine record of militant 
success. 

But the fineness of Bryant’s public life, and the 
success of it, were due in large measure to the sup- 
porting and protecting influence of the Muse whose 
service he never forsook. She first raised him up 

cun 


and gave him honorable hearing among the sons of 
men. The prestige of her favor enhanced his dig- 
nity even with those who only knew the goddess by 
report. The divine consolations of her intercourse 
enlarged his spirit, clarified his vision, and fortified 
his heart. Amid the cabals and clamors of the mid- 
century, she cheered him with songs like The Land 
of Dreams and The Planting of the Apple-tree . 
Amid the confusions of the Civil War she gave him 


Feelings of calm power and mighty sweep, 

Like currents journeying through the windless deep. 


To the “pure columns of her glen-built hair’ he 
returned from the battle and the market-place to 
find strength in the sanctuary. 

Poetry is the palladium. It sheds the glory of 
the soul upon the wonder of the world, and makes 
life secure by filling it with light. 

And when it fails, fight as we will, we die; 

And while it lasts we cannot wholly end. 


The clear preeminence of Bryant among the 
poets of America was confirmed in 1832 by the 
appearance of a volume containing his eight early 
poems and eighty new ones. Among the best of 
these were A Forest Hymn , The Evening Wind , 
The Death of the Flowers , and the unforgettable 
lyric To the Fringed Gentian,— 

Blue — blue — as if the sky let fall 
A flower from its caerulean wall. 

C 12 H 


No other man on this side of the Atlantic had 
written, as yet, in verse worthy to be compared with 
this, except Poe, of whose magical melodies a few 
were printed in the tiny volume of 1831. But a 
new era was at hand. The Northern peers and 
rivals of Bryant rose over the horizon— Whittier 
the Psalmist, Longfellow the Household Bard, 
Emerson the Seer, Lowell the Trouvere; and the 
region around Boston became, for a time, the liter- 
ary centre of the country. 

These new-comers brought a wider range and 
new elements of power and charm into American 
poetry. Bryant was no longer alone. But shall we 
say that he was eclipsed or lowered? No; for the 
qualities of his verse remained the same, and their 
value was undiminished. In his own sphere he was 
still the master. He was not dramatic or oracular; 
he had no gift of swift narrative or ballad music; 
the surprise and mystery of lyrical passion were be- 
yond him ; the rich luxuriance of romantic verse was 
not his. He was not touched by changes in poetic 
fashion, nor envious of the favor which came to 
those whom the Muse had led in other ways. True 
to himself, he walked The Path which she opened 
to him, the meditative lyrist, singing with pure and 
undiscordant tones of Nature, of common hopes and 
sorrows, of The Journey of Life, of The Cloud on 
the Way , and of The Brighter Day . 

The vast shadow of Death was never far from his 
thought, yet he only trimmed his lamp more clearly. 
Autumnal flowers were dearest to him ; yet he was 
not insensible to The Gladness of Nature, and he 

CM 3 


caught the merriest music of The Bobolink, Re- 
served in the utterance of passion, he felt the love of 
country as a living fire, and there are no patriotic 
poems which glow with deeper feeling than his 
Death of Slavery and “Oh, Mother of a Mighty 
Race” 

His translation of Homer, begun, like Long- 
fellow’s translation of Dante, as a refuge from per- 
sonal sorrow, became a congenial task which inter- 
ested and absorbed him for five years. The result 
was highly creditable to his scholarship and skill, 
and added new significance to the fancied resem- 
blance of his Homeric head to 

. . . that Ionian father of the rest. 

I prefer the Iliad of Bryant to that of Pope, be- 
cause it seems more like Homer. But I enjoy Chap- 
man’s version better, because it seems more like an 
adventure. Yet, at its best, a long and great trans- 
lation must stand a little apart from the body of a 
poet’s personal work, which is animated by his own 
spirit, and by which we estimate and remember him. 

The poetry of Bryant is for those who think 
while they feel. It has an inward-sinking power 
which carries it far into the soul. It is elevating, 
sustaining, enduring. It is the grave and tender 
heart-music of a man who looked without fear upon 
The Flood of Years, because he looked beyond 
them, and who did his work while it was day. 

That work is ended. The confused noise of the 
conflicts in which he bravely fought has rolled away. 
The stately eloquence of his memorial tributes to 

C143 


the illustrious dead is silent. The dust gathers upon 
the long columns of embattled prose which his hand 
arrayed in transitory strife. The very workshop 
where he toiled, and the banquet-halls where he was 
honored, are lost beneath the rising tide of the new 
city. But the memory of the man and the poet 
remains. 

Stand here, imperishable bronze without a seam, 
and speak of that which is durable amid the tran- 
sient. Speak of manhood strengthened by faith 
and hope and love. Speak of poetry that wears no 
vesture of decay, but walks in shining raiment. 
Speak for him who said: 

Well, I have had my turn, have been 
Raised from the darkness of the clod. 

And for a glorious moment seen 

The brightness of the skirts of God ; 

And knew the light within my breast, 

Tho’ wavering oftentimes and dim. 

The power, the will, that never rest 
And cannot die, were all from him. 


At the conclusion of Dr. van Dyke’s address, the 
statue was unveiled by Miss Frances Godwin, 
the youngest great-grandchild of Mr. Bryant, and 
Mr. Rives then addressed his Honor Mayor Gaynor 
as follows: 

Mr. Mayor: 

In the name and on behalf of the Century Association, I ask 
your acceptance of this noble work of art by a great American 
sculptor, which is intended as a memorial of a great citizen, 
our first American poet, and which is the gift of the Century 
Association to the City of New York. 


MAYOR GAYNOR’S SPEECH 


ACCEPTING FROM THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION THE 
MEMORIAL STATUE OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
ON BEHALF OF THE CITY: 

Mr, Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen: 

It is certainly a great pleasure for me, as Mayor, 
to accept this gift to the City of New York. It is 
a noble monument of Mr. Bryant. It is all the more 
gratifying to see it here, for the reason that it is 
entirely paid for by private subscription. I have 
often thought in recent years that the habit of the 
city to do everything out of the city treasury has 
caused the habit of the citizen to do things like this 
and to contribute to charity to dwindle away, and 
I am afraid in the end it will die out entirely. You 
very often now hear people say, when asked to con- 
tribute something for a monument like this, or for 
the celebration of Independence Day, or for some 
noble charity, “Why, the city does all that now, and 
we have no need to give it. We give it in our 
taxes.” I hope that spirit will change, and that 
what we witness this day will stimulate people to 
continue their private contributions for all such 
things, because they ennoble the individual. I have 

C163 


listened with great interest to the noble oration of 
my friend Dr. van Dyke on Mr. Bryant. It is 
worthy of remembrance, but through it all one thing 
ran in my mind, that while Mr. Bryant was a great 
genius, he was at the same time one of the most 
homespun and every-day citizens that New York 
City ever had. With all this genius, he was as 
level-headed as a man could be. He went up and 
down among us here for a great many years, doing 
his simple duty in the simplest way imaginable. 
All his genius did not do away with his common 
sense, which he possessed in the highest degree. He 
was for a long time a newspaper editor among us, 
and will always live as the model for newspaper 
editors here and elsewhere. Always fair, always 
dignified, always treating public discussions prop- 
erly, he nevertheless had strong convictions and 
maintained them in a dignified manner and after 
the manner of a scholar and a gentleman, which, 
after all, is the most effective way in this world. 
Nobody can think of Bryant without thinking of 
that one poem of his —Thanatopsis. At least I can 
never think of him without thinking of that, which 
Dr. van Dyke told us he wrote at the age of seven- 
teen, which is marvelous in itself. He seems to try 
to uplift us in the poem and make us happy, but to 
me it is the most melancholy poem that ever was 
written. He says, when the thought of the blight 
of death comes over us, and of the shroud and of the 
bier, to go forth and look at nature and see what 
nature tells us to cheer us up. And then he pictures 
the small voice of nature telling us something to 


cheer us up. The small voice of nature is, as he 
speaks it, that after death we go back into this earth 
from which we came; we take our place again as 
part of the insensate rock, as part of the furrow that 
the ploughman throws up; we go into the earth 
from which we came. And then he pictures this 
earth as one universal burying-ground, no foot of 
it where some one is not buried— in the wilderness, 
and in the boundless woods, 


Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound 
Save his own dashings. 


Wherever you go, it is one universal burying- 
ground where mankind has been placed from the 
beginning of the world. And there he leaves it all, 
his idea being the splendor of our tomb surrounded 
by nature. It has always seemed to me that the 
poem is splendid, if it be true that we wholly perish 
with this body. I have often wished that he just 
struck the other note somewhere even at the end, 
that although our bodies go back to the mould 
thrown up by the ploughman, there is something in 
us somewhere that does not perish with the body, 
and which is no part of that universal burial and 
does not repose in the ground or go back to the 
ground. In that way the poem has always seemed 
to me to be a melancholy one. The picture is the 
picture of nature, but the thought and the impres- 
sion that it leaves is the most melancholy that man 
can contemplate. If that be the end of all, the pic- 
ture is splendid; but if that be not the end of all, 

D83 


then a more splendid picture still could be painted, 
splendid as his picture is. Nevertheless, there are 
others of his poems that breathe a softer note, and 
that bring back the cheerfulness not only of this life 
but of the expected life hereafter. 

This monument forever will be a place of instruc- 
tion to everybody who comes to the City of New 
York. Since the beginning of the world, the great- 
est teachers of history have been the monuments. 
Even in our own country, New England, in her 
history of the Revolution, got ahead of all the rest 
of the country simply by putting up Bunker Hill 
and Bennington monuments to teach what occurred 
there. The whole country is now doing the same 
thing, and in that way history is taught, and in that 
way this monument will teach history as long as this 
city endures. 


C19] 


DESCRIPTION OF THE STATUE BY 
EDWIN HOWLAND BLASHFIELD 


The poet sits turned squarely toward the spectator, 
niched and canopied, simply but amply draped, the 
focal centre of a great fa9ade and the dominating 
feature of a brick- and-marble-flagged promenade, 
separated by a stone parapet from Bryant Park. 

The problem was to create and set a dignified 
presentment of a poet- journalist in one of the 
busiest spots of a city to whose business William 
Cullen Bryant was closely akin as working citizen, 
to whose heart he had penetrated as poet, yet from 
some of whose more sordid sides he was as aloof 
as the water-fowl of his immortal verse. 

To reconcile conditions, to characterize the man 
without jarring, to build a harmony, was not easy, 
yet it is not too much to say that sculptor and archi- 
tect have succeeded. 

In the whole range of the graphic arts perhaps 
nothing is harder to present satisfactorily than the 
single seated figure (unless it be the single stand- 
ing figure), turned quietly and unassumingly to- 
ward the spectator. Whether it be in a group or a 
C20] 


relief, in the middle of the pediment to a temple, 
or in the centre of a mural painting, this dominat- 
ing focal figure tyrannizes over the artist; he may 
not take liberties with it; it may not be episodical 
and glance to right or left at some other figure 
unless it perform specific action, but must hold itself 
squarely to our view, fronting “y ou and me, and 
all the world in circle.” Its ancestors in kindred 
placing have been myriad. No striking novelty of 
pose is, therefore, possible. Nor would it be desira- 
ble, for the desideratum is something wider and 
deeper at once than sensationalism or novelty could 
satisfy. 

Material realistic conditions cannot be escaped, 
and the first and hardest of these to meet in the 
modern statue is, perhaps, costume. The man of 
to-day must wear clothes even when they are of 
bronze. We no longer accept him like Nicodemus 
in the verses, or Napoleon in the Brera, or Wash- 
ington emergent at springtime from the wooden 
box which has protected his nakedness through the 
mild winter of the South. Clothes the statue must 
have— therefore trousers, a garment for which 
even the most determined foe of hyperestheticism 
cannot claim much picturesqueness. 

Where ruggedness is a special characteristic, as 
in Farragut, for instance, trousers flapping in the 
wind upon one who is “damning the torpedoes,” 
even add force. But with the seated poet it was 
quite another thing, and Mr. Adams admits that 
the trousers were a “bugbear” to be disposed of first 
of all. He canceled them by means of a simple, 
C213 


heavy drapery, the most obvious, but also the very 
best subterfuge known to art. 

The drapery not only covers the troublesome cos- 
tume, it affords a large, simple surface just where 
it is most useful in the whole composition; it does 
away with the confusedly openwork pattern which 
human legs and chair legs make in combination, 
and it admirably carries down the figure into 
the mass of the pedestal. Upon a seated figure, 
especially when the latter is at some elevation, the 
less noble parts of the body, the legs and feet, are 
thrust forward, yet for some reason hard to under- 
stand entirely, but patent as a fact to artists, unless 
the legs from the knee down, especially if draped, 
are emphasized strongly, they are apt to look feeble. 
The dictum of a very famous sculptor comes to my 
mind. He said: “Unless I make the legs mon- 
strous, they seem insignificant.” Mr. Adams has 
not made them monstrous, but the effect is satisfy- 
ing. The X-shaped seat, often called the “Savona- 
rola chair,” for which the sculptor used an Italian 
original of the fifteenth century, is peculiarly well 
suited to its place, since the architect’s niche and 
semidome compose more naturally with it than they 
could with any high-backed seat. 

Physically, Bryant was a beautiful old man; 
allusion to the Homeric head of this translator of 
Homer is usual, almost inevitable. It is as an old 
man that the sculptor has represented him, and 
in his characterization Mr. Adams’ recognized re- 
straint, distinction, taste, and skill in modeling have 
again been manifest. In his statue of the poet he 


has tried, and successfully, “to present him in that 
mood of lofty contemplation which is the key-note 
of his poetry,” and he has felt with Mr. Bigelow, 
whose book (page 148) he quotes, that “when he 
put on his singing-robes there was always some- 
thing more or less pontifical in the rites that were 
to be celebrated.” This fine statue is so simply and 
largely felt that it may be seen often without tiring; 
and, last of all, the artist has succeeded in capturing 
that elusive factor in sculptural effect — a good col- 
oration— the beginnings of a handsome patine. 

The setting to the statue was included in the 
city’s contract for the surroundings and approaches 
to the Library building, and it is worthy of its des- 
tination and purpose. The niche and canopy, with 
their Renaissance detail, treated with a freedom 
suited to a modern design, and in scale slightly 
smaller than that of the detail of the Library fa 9 ade, 
give a background of helpful shadow to the figure, 
while the vases, the bucrania, the linden trees, futuri 
esse as spots of color and darkness, are elegant in 
form and distinguished in composition. 

Such a place as Mr. Hastings has created in the 
broad, terraced walk with its stone seats, its exedra- 
like curving ends, its quietly lovely coloring in the 
pavement of cool gray marble and warmer brick, 
offers, like the work of him who is celebrated, a 
comforting sense of spacious restfulness, of room 
for contemplation and repose. 

Dr. van Dyke says that Bryant is the poet of 
those who think while they feel. Mr. Adams and 
Mr. Hastings have felt while they were thinking, 

C233 


and the result is our good fortune. Upon the ugly 
confusion of a modern city the hand of the archi- 
tect, if he be a true artist, and if that hand has been 
even reasonably free to work its will, in such a place 
as this lies like a caress ; it is a corrective— a calmant. 
Such a space, so ordered, so thought, is a lesson in 
mental decorum as it borders the Library’s base, 
only separated by its parapet from the lounger- 
filled park. In stepping upon the terrace, away 
from trolley-cars and advertising shop-fronts, one 
instinctively lowers the voice and breathes more 
deeply and quietly. 

Perhaps nothing in the artistic contribution of 
the architects and sculptor in this case is more im- 
portant to the city than the proof they have given 
that the great building to-day, as always, needs and 
profits by its architectonic harmony within and 
without. Without, the setting of the Library is at 
once to separate it from, and harmoniously to com- 
pose it with, the city. Within, the architects have 
planned it to receive all that esthetic furnishing, that 
decoration by sculpture and painting, which caused 
the buildings of the Renaissance to be so humanly 
interesting. Such preparation will in time make its 
completed decoration as inevitable as is the coming 
of the flower upon the plant in its season. Let us 
hope that when it does come, it will still bear the 
stamp of moderation, thought, and distinction for 
which to-day we have to thank the architects and 
the sculptor of the terracing, the niche, and the 
statue to William Cullen Bryant. 

zm 


The following selection of music was rendered 
before the ceremonies, and in the intervals between 
the addresses, by Mr. Franko’s orchestra : 

Fanfare John George 

Prelude 

Overture to “Rienzi” Wagner 

Invitation a la Danse Weber 

Selections from “Die Meistersinger” . . Wagner 

Love-Song Farwell 

“America” 

During intermission 

Dreams Wagner 

At unveiling 

Centuria Mosenthal 

Postlude 

“Star-Spangled Banner” 

Selections from “Die Walkure” .... Wagner 

March “America” 


C253 


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